The Stalker in the Shadows
by DezoPenguin
Summary: Young hunter Alys Brangwin thinks her work in Uzo is done when she defeats a sea monster, but soon finds herself heading back out to sea when an island hermitage is plagued by what may be murder...or may be something worse.
1. Chapter 1

_A/N: It just wouldn't be right if I let a year pass without writing at least one Alys Brangwin story._

* * *

The ocean was still. The air was hot and heavy, unmoving, and the surface of the water matched it with a stillness that turned the sea into a glass mirror for the bright sun and wispy white clouds above, an eerie, unnatural stillness, not a peaceful one. It made the back of Alys Brangwin's neck prickle. A hunter's instincts could tell when something was off. Her attention focused, her nerves on edge, ready to act.

It exploded from the water a hundred feet away from her, bursting from beneath the surface with such force that the waves displaced by its appearance rocked her boat nearly sixty degrees off the horizontal. She was sure she was about to capsize, but through some miracle the boat rocked back the other way and crashed down onto the surface right-side up.

The monster was titanic, well living up to its name, _leviathan_. More massive even than its land-going cousins the sand worms, the enormous blue worm reared at least sixty feet above the surface. The three crawler carcasses Alys had lashed together as bait were caught up in the tentacles surrounding its toothless maw, and in the next instant were stuffed down its rapacious gullet.

The huge beast was the reason for Alys's presence. The creatures were not numerous, thankfully, but some whim of its instinct had made this one establish a permanent presence in the Straits of Uzo, threatening the island village's fishing boats and sea trade. Twelve lives had been lost in the past eighteen days, and with both trade and food supply in danger the villagers had sent to Aiedo for help from the Hunter's Guild. Alys was only twenty, but she had been trained as a hunter by Galf the Thunder Sword, one of the legends of the Guild, and she'd figured that she was up to the challenge. Success would mean a good payday and the added reputation that could bring in more work.

As for failure? Well, she'd never liked the idea of being buried in the Aiedo cemetery anyway.

Alys had already had a slasher drawn, its blades in their open and locked position, and she hadn't dropped it even as she clung to the gunwale with her free hand while the beast had danced on the waves. She summoned up power from within herself, driving it into the slasher, and hurled the boomerang-like weapon. The instant it left her hand it exploded into a life of its own, coming alight with orange sparks and streaking like a shot towards the rearing leviathan. When it reached the base of the creature the blade started to spiral upwards around its massive body, the glowing blades slashing into it as it traveled, gouging the thick hide, before snapping off its flight to sail back towards Alys's head.

She'd already sent a second slasher after the first, drawing, opening, and hurling it in a single motion. This one was not charged with her Vortex skill, but merely slashed in a single arc against the creature's skin before sailing back. She deftly caught one blade, then the second as they returned to her. The second slasher's grip had just slapped into Alys's white-gloved hand when the leviathan dropped, its huge body slamming down into the water, another surging wave erupting. She dropped one weapon into the bottom of the boat, holding on for dear life as for the second time she was nearly swamped. If she ended up in the water, she was a dead woman; there was no way she could fight the massive worm in its own element.

She'd just become convinced that the boat was not going to go down when the leviathan lashed at her with its feeding tentacles. Alys only realized at the last second that they were coming and flung herself back, kicking herself away from the edge. The tentacles smashed through the small boat's side in a shower of splinters, but came up empty in their search for the hunter.

Unable to get a good throw off from her sprawled position, Alys used her Foi technique instead, drawing power in from around herself and hurling it at the leviathan in a bolt of fire. The blast burst against the creature's lip. But to no avail. It wasn't entirely unexpected—most creatures on the desert planet were resistant to fire and heat techniques—but she'd hoped a sea monster would be a bit more vulnerable to flame than it had proved to be.

"All right; I guess we stick with Plan A," she muttered aloud, then pulled herself to her feet and flung her remaining slasher at the creature while taking a cylinder about nine inches long from a belt pouch. She'd picked the item up in the Native Motavian village of Molcum but really hadn't wanted to use it if she could help it. Dynamite, after all, was touchy stuff.

She scooped up the dropped slasher and darted to the bow of the boat, then waited for the leviathan to attack again. Sure enough, the monster lashed out at her, this time tearing apart the prow. Alys hurled the slasher at the tentacles while she snapped the cap off the dynamite charge with her thumb, igniting the hissing, sparking fuse. The spinning blade slashed into the ropy extrusions and blood flew; two were severed. The leviathan thrashed and roared, retracting its tentacles and at the same time opening its maw in a deafening howl.

Alys planted her foot, braced herself, and hurled the tube in a spinning, tumbling arc into the leviathan's gullet.

The detonation was muffled by the leviathan's thick body, but the damage it did was shown at once by the shuddering convulsions that immediately consumed it. The thrashings churned up the water, but much less fiercely than the swells it had created before. A little water slopped into the boat through the battle-damaged sides, but not enough to threaten its stability. It was easy enough for Alys to ride out the wait until the leviathan's death throes ceased and the giant worm merely lay floating on the ocean's surface, still and quiescent in death.

If the fisherfolk of Uzo were lucky, they would be able to bring the beast's carcass back to the island. It would mean meat, blubber for oil, hide for leather, nothing that could replace the lives lost but a silver lining of sorts for the survivors. Even the weather seemed to be in the mood to celebrate Alys's victory, for with the leviathan's passing the air began to move again, a breeze rising to drive away the eerie stillness. The triangular sails began to flutter, then filled with the wind and began to take Alys back towards land.

An hour later, Alys found herself in one of Uzo's two taverns, sharing a mug of the local beer with the village chief. The brew was thick, almost like a mead in consistency, and flavored with berries to give it a sweetness that cut the impact of its weight. She liked the taste, but had a feeling that more than a couple of mugs would leave her with an ugly head to start the next day.

"You're entitled to it," Nils Lawson repeated for the third time. "It's the custom here. Anyone who helps land a sea creature is entitled to a share of the profit from the catch. It's a point of honor among the fisherfolk."

Alys sighed and sipped at her beer.

"I'm not fisherfolk," she pointed out. If she'd wanted to catch fish for a living she could have stayed in the orphanage in Tiria instead of apprenticing with Galf. "As a hunter from the Guild, such customs don't apply." She took another drink. "Besides, I didn't do anything to land it. The villagers are out doing that right now."

"You _killed_ the leviathan, Alys."

"For which your village is paying me a very fat fee. Ten thousand meseta, and believe you me, I'm going to expect payment in full."

"It's already been arranged. We had the money ready in advance."

"Then I don't see the problem. I go home, I report in, I collect the payment from the Guild, and everybody's happy."

"But the leviathan! You didn't just kill it, you did so in a way that we'll get the benefit from it as well! That monster will mean seventy or eighty thousand meseta by the time we're through." The worry line that wrinkled his forehead was the only thing that kept the village chief's eyebrows from blending together into one. _Huh. This stuff must have more of a kick than I thought if I'm noticing things like that._

Alys shrugged.

"Good for you. Money coming in means you won't have any reason to welch on my fee."

"That isn't the point!"

Alys polished off the mug. Lawson's intransigence was rapidly taking away the glow of satisfaction she felt from a job well done.

"Look, Nils, I'm going to put this as simply as I can. I. Don't. Want. It. Can I _be_ more clear?"

"But _why_? You _deserve_ it."

"I'm a hunter. I do jobs in exchange for a listed commission fee. Sure, if I happen across cash in a monster's den I'm not going to turn it down, but I'm not a waitress or a street musician. I don't take tips. That the people of Uzo get a windfall from my success has nothing to do with me; it's just dumb luck. If your villagers' pride as fishermen won't be content without somehow acknowledging me, then they can give my share to the families of the people the leviathan killed. There's some justice there, at least, more than paying _me_ extra for something I'm already getting paid for."

She looked him square in the eyes.

"Now do we understand each other or is this going to turn into a bar brawl?"

He held her gaze for a couple of seconds, then grinned and hoisted his mug.

"No way I'm gonna pick that fight," Lawson declared. "The last thing that took you on is gonna get rendered, and I'm a lot smaller than it was." He took a substantial pull on his beer. "I guess you hunters have your pride in your work, too."

"Some of us do, at least." Alys was well aware that there were a number of hunters who'd have taken the offer. Of course, most of them would have been worm food at this point, so their greed would have been moot.

_I'm turning maudlin_, she thought. _I hope it's not the beer. I hate maudlin drunks._

"Either way, we still can't thank you enough. It's not just the cost in human lives; a leviathan plays hell with the fishing grounds whenever one comes in towards coastal waters. The whole food chain gets turned on its head."

"I didn't know that. Sand worms tend to migrate through a region, so they don't cause the same kind of issues, more like a passing disaster than a permanent problem."

Lawson nodded.

"Leviathans generally stay out in deep ocean, but when they come in nearer to shore they get territorial. Don't know why; maybe it's mating season for them or something."

"Who knows? Maybe those professors up in Piata could tell us."

"Oh, yeah. Maybe they could." Lawson glanced at Alys's mug. "Did you want a refill?"

Alys pondered the issue.

"Sure, why not?" she finally decided. "I won't be doing any fighting tomorrow, so who cares if I have to sleep off a hangover?"

"Hah! That's the spirit!" Lawson crowed. He waved a hand towards the waitress. "Another round for Miss Brangwin, Molly!"

"You got it, Nils!"

Alys grinned at him.

"Informal bunch you've got here, Chief Lawson."

He chuckled at her use of his title.

"We don't get too caught up in that kind of thing. Start thinking that being chief makes you special and you won't be chief ten seconds later. I mean, the whole reason chiefs get the job in a place Uzo's size is because the people trust us to make good decisions for everybody's benefit. Sure, there's some politics and factionalism over local issues, but it's a lot more like being a dad than one of your mayor-types you've got in places like Aiedo."

Alys nodded.

"Do you have kids?"

Lawson grinned again.

"You mean, other than the villagers? Two girls, age six and seven. Let me tell you, they're a handful! I swear, my wife and I can barely keep up with them."

"Wait 'til they get to be teenagers."

The waitress came by with a big earthenware pitcher and filled Alys's beer mug to the brim.

"You want another, Nils?"

"I don't think so, Molly. Can't have Janell thinking I spent the evening out drinking with a pretty girl!"

Alys snickered. While she knew she was attractive (lack of self-esteem never having been one of her problems), she had to laugh at the idea of her being a _femme fatale_.

"Well, I figure that since you've been trying to push extra money on me, you're not going to try and seduce me out of my fee," she joked. Lawson smirked.

"At my age, Janell's the only one I can seduce into anything, and that's because we love each other, so that's an unfair advantage."

Alys grinned back.

"Then you'd better go home and get a head start on that."

He smirked.

"Works for me. Thanks to you, we've got something to celebrate tonight. But at the least, let me pay for your inn room and dinner."

Alys shook her head.

"There's no need. I brought a telepipe with me, so I'll be sleeping in my own bed tonight."

"All right, then." He got up, then dug into his pocket and tossed some meseta down on the table to pay for the drinks. "Seriously, thanks again, Alys."

The batwing doors of the tavern swung open as someone entered the room.

"Excuse me, is Chief Lawson here?" the man called. He caught Alys's attention largely because of how he was dressed; he wore his pale yellow hair long so that it spilled across the shoulders of his dull gray robe. His hood was up, but pushed back so that his square, sturdy face could be plainly seen, and the only other things he wore or carried were the sandals on his feet and the braided rope belt which cinched his rope around his waist, and from which a leather scrip hung.

"Right here," Lawson said, lifting a hand. "It's...Brother Huard, isn't it?"

"Yes, it is."

"So what brings you into town, Brother? Usually, we only see you folks when we make the regular deliveries."

A dreadful eagerness came into Brother Huard's face.

"I know, but we desperately need your help! And they said at the docks that you were here with a hunter from the Guild? One who'd just killed a leviathan?"

Lawson nodded.

"This is Alys Brangwin," he said, indicating the young woman.

"Thanks be to Heaven!"

"What's wrong, Brother?" Lawson asked.

"What is _not_ wrong?" the robed man babbled. "There have been savage murders, while others of our brethren have disappeared! There is a devil haunting the Hermitage!"

Alys pushed her still-nearly-full mug away.

"I guess I won't be going home as early as I'd thought."


	2. Chapter 2

"So what exactly is this 'Hermitage,' anyway?" Alys asked. The little boat bobbed up and down; it was a windy evening and the ocean's surface was unsettled. The wind filled the sail, though, carrying Brother Huard and herself rapidly away from Uzo. Clouds scudded across the sky, making the rising moon into a coy tease that showed herself for a moment before veiling herself from sight once more. "Are you some kind of religious group?" She didn't use the word _cult_, but it wasn't far from her mind.

Brother Huard shook his head.

"No, we're not—at least, not in the sense that I think you mean. We aren't a group dedicated to the worship of some god or gods. We call ourselves the Order of the Inner Light." He fell silent for a moment, perhaps thinking of the best way to describe the group. "Have you ever seen a solar eclipse, Ms. Brangwin?"

"Alys, and yes, I have."

"Alys," he acknowledged. "Well, then you know that during an eclipse, you can see the corona of light around the fringe of the sun, but the great mass of the sun itself remains in shadow, concealed behind the moon. Its light is still there, but it is hidden away, lost to us behind the veil. That is how we view the human mind."

"Come again?"

"We—people in general, I mean—scurry through the days caught up in our ordinary lives, our worries, our desires, all the details to keep track of and all the chaos of our changing emotions. This prevents us from using our full potential. Our brethren have therefore chosen to withdraw from that chaos. We live an orderly life in seclusion, as free as possible from ordinary concerns. Instead, we spend the majority of our time in study and meditation, seeking the clarity of mind and spirit that lie within everyone."

"I see."

Alys couldn't say that she particularly agreed with the Order's philosophy. What Brother Huard had said reminded her of herself during the early days of her combat training with Galf. "I wasn't ready!" had been a plaintive whine more than once from her, but Galf hadn't been sympathetic. "An enemy ain't likely to wait until you're 'ready,' and a monster definitely won't. So you've got to _be_ ready, always," was his response. Brother Huard's talk about the contemplative life free of chaos made her think of people who couldn't keep themselves prepared, couldn't develop the combat reflexes a hunter needed.

Still, it wasn't like they were looking for her opinion of their worldview, and Alys wasn't particularly interested in giving it, either. She had a job to do, deaths to investigate. Brother Huard had hired her on behalf of his order and they'd sent a letter transmission to the Guild to formalize the contract.

Brother Huard shivered.

"Now, though, our peace has been destroyed. It is as if some evil spirit has come among us, mocking everything we stand for, replacing harmony with terror and our ordered existence with chaos!"

"Can you be more precise?" Alys said. She needed details, after all.

Brother Huard nodded.

"It's hard, but I shall try."

"Start with the setting. How many people are there at your hermitage?"

"There were twenty-one of us in all, before this all started."

"All twenty-one were members of your order?"

"Yes. We are responsible for ourselves; manual labor can be part of a properly ordered existence, and to have servants would introduce issues of class and rank that would be disruptive."

Alys supposed there was something to that.

"How long has it been since you founded the community?"

"Three years."

"And there haven't been any incidents until these recent events?"

Brother Huard shook his head.

"None! Oh, we've had the occasional accident—a slip and fall that results in a sprain or fracture—and a minor disease or so, but no deaths, and certainly no outbreaks of violence!"

Alys nodded, processing the information.

"I see. And when did these current events begin?"

"Two weeks ago...thirteen days, to be precise."

"In this business, we prefer things to be as precise as possible."

"I will try to be so. In any case, it is also what our principles teach—ah! There is the island."

He pointed, and in the moonlight Alys could see the shape of a great, craggy rock rearing up out of the sea. It was at least a hundred and fifty feet high, she judged, rearing up like a castle or fortress.

"As I was saying, this horror began thirteen days ago with the disappearance of Brother Selwyn. Sometime between the dinner hour, seven at night, and the midnight chapter, he vanished without a trace. Nothing had been disturbed in his cell, and there was no sign of him anywhere despite a diligent search. As you can well imagine, there are simply very few places where a person could hide on the island. The only conclusion we could reach was that somehow Brother Selwyn must have fallen from one of the cliffs and his body pulled out to sea. We were saddened by this apparent tragedy, but had no idea that it was but the beginning."

He paused for a moment before continuing.

"Two days later, the events seemed to repeat themselves. Brother Farnham vanished without a trace. He was, perhaps, overfond of his wine and so it was not entirely unlikely that he had lost his footing while under the influence, but two accidents within three days after having none the previous three years seemed uncanny to us, and the entire community was agitated. The next day, though, agitation turned to terror. Brothers David and Hendon went to fetch up a cask of wine from the cellars and they stumbled across the freshly murdered body of Brother Armand!"

"You say murdered? It's been established?"

Brother Huard nodded.

"His throat had been slashed, and the blood was still wet when he was found!"

"I presume you made some kind of investigation?"

"Our charter as an order does establish a proceeding for hearing disputes between brothers in chapter, since we understand that people will disagree and quarrel from time to time, but it was never expected to have to deal with a murderer! Still, Elder Foulke—he was the founder of our community—did ask questions and try to establish alibis." Brother Huard shook his head. "It was all meaningless. None among us could imagine how or why this could possibly happen. Some of the brethren thought that Brother Selwyn was somehow responsible, as he had quarreled with Brother Armand two days before his disappearance, but I think even the ones who suggested it only did so to try and convince themselves that there was some rational explanation. Since then, Brothers Cardan, Stephane, and Wallin have also vanished, and Brother Cassin was found dead in much the same circumstances as Brother Armand, except that it was within his dormitory cell when I...when I went to fetch him for..."

Trembling, he broke off as, no doubt, the memory of his bloody discovery overcame him. As a professional hunter, Alys had developed the ability to encounter death without being put too far out of kilter, but she appreciated how it affected people without that experience. To distract Brother Huard and allow him to regain some of his self-possession, she changed the subject.

"So far you've said 'brothers' and 'brethren' when talking about your order. Are you all men?"

"Y-yes, yes we are." His voice grew more steady with every word; Alys's strategy was working. "We believed that admitting women would be counterproductive. Oh! It's not that we believe women aren't capable of achieving the same clarity of thought," he hastily added, suddenly realizing that his statement might have been taken the wrong way. "It's that the physical passions are a distraction to be avoided in our search, so we practice celibacy. While strong-minded people, of course, can maintain such a vow in any circumstance, we felt it best that temptation should be removed as we sought to remove all other distractions. Should, as we hope, the order grows so that more are interested in following its ways, women would naturally create their own hermitages to follow the path." He paused, then added. "In fact, you'll be the first woman to set foot on the island since the Hermitage was completed."

"I'll try not to be too distracting."

Brother Huard's face fell.

"I've given offense. I apologize, Alys; it was in no way my intent to imply that your presence would be in any way unwelcome."

She waved off his apology.

"No, I was just being a wiseacre. It's a bad habit I picked up from an old friend, that's all." After all, anyone who could raise an objection to letting a woman into the Hermitage when fully one-third of the brethren had died or disappeared within a fortnight was beyond _her_ ability to help. Alys paused for a moment, then returned to the discussion of the case. "So you decided to send to Uzo for aid."

"That's right. Several of us, including Brothers Stephane and Cassin, were strongly against this course, since self-sufficiency is one of our strongest goals. Yet, it quickly became clear that we would not be able to resolve this problem on our own. Outsiders like yourself, with special skills, were our only hope to save all of the brethren from our fate. Our only other choice would be to abandon the Hermitage, and if we were to do that there would be no assurance that we wouldn't be stalked to any new location."

_Particularly if it's one or more of you who's responsible,_ Alys thought. After all, if there was nowhere to hide on the island, then the killer would seem to be one of the surviving brethren. Brother Huard hadn't come out and said it, but that was the best reason of all to call for outside help. The only one not under suspicion—including Brother Huard—was Alys herself. Had one of the brothers gone mad? Or was there some other, more tangible motive for the crimes, perhaps a group of robbers trying to whittle down the size of the group until they could finish the rest off directly?

She was just guessing. It would be better to wait until they got there and she could investigate first-hand. For all she knew, it might be an actual evil spirit like Brother Huard had said in his fit of emotion. She'd seen things in her six years with the Guild that would fit that definition well enough.

The side of the island they were approaching appeared to be a sheer rock wall, yet Brother Huard continued to steer directly towards it. Alys looked in surprise from the cliff face to the man at the tiller.

"Should you be steering such a direct course?" she asked. "The current will take us right into the rock face."

"As a matter of fact, that is what we intend, only of course without coming to grief. Look closely—do you see the cave?"

Alys peered closely and indeed could make out a dark blot at sea level.

"Is that the landing?"

"One of them. There's a strip of beach on the far side of the islet, but the path up the cliffside is steep and narrow, hard going even during the daytime. The sea cave is accessible only at low tide, but a proper staircase makes things easier and safer."

"I see. Your order built the stairs?"

"Yes, we did. Could you light the lamp? We'll need it inside the cave."

Alys did as he asked, and out of habit kept her eyes away from the flame, knowing that it would destroy her night vision. They sailed on and into the rocky cave. The lamplight revealed where the cave walls were wet, showing how it filled at high tide, so that there was no space for a boat to pass then, as Brother Huard had said. The roof of the cave rose as they got further in, though, and after a few dozen yards the waterway widened out into a kind of pool or lagoon. Brother Huard steered the boat to the shore and moored it, tying up the bow rope to a stone post.

He took the lamp from the prow and led the way into the cavern, and at the far end Alys saw the staircase. The steps were broad, and there were handrails, so that although they climbed upwards for quite some distance it was a relatively easy task. At last, the steps opened out into a stone-flagged passage.

"We are here in the cellars of the Hermitage," he said. "This once-peaceful retreat, now turned to a place of pain and terror." He paused for a long moment as if gathering his courage. "Come; I'll take you to Elder Foulke, and then you can begin your investigation however you see fit."

Alys nodded; it seemed as good a course of action as any to meet the Order's leader first.

"Brother Huard," she asked as he led her down the hall, "what was done with the bodies of the dead men?"

He blinked in surprise.

"Why, they were properly buried, with all reverence. The Hermitage was laid out with a cemetery plot, for we anticipated that it would be a long-term settlement."

"That's too bad."

"Too bad? But why?"

"I'd hoped to get a look at them, or at least the more recent one."

"Good heavens!" Brother Huard's shock was plain to see. "Why would you want to do that?"

"To a hunter, the body can explain a lot about the method of violent death. It might help me understand what kind of weapon was used, whether the victims were surprised or fought back, if there was more than one attacker, and other things like that."

_You've always gotta know what you're dealing with, 'cause ignorance'll get you killed faster than anything,_ Galf had taught her. _Seeing what it did to the last guy's your best way of learning what it can do to you._

"Oh. Oh, I see," Brother Huard said, absorbing the information. "I'm sorry if I was rash; it's just that I don't really have experience in dealing with hunters—or with sudden death, for that matter."

Alys nodded.

"It's all right; I'm used to that reaction, except when working for the town guard."

"Still and all, I am ashamed by my reaction and the ignorance that prompted it."

He led the way up another flight of stairs and then one more, which passed through an arch into another hallway. The walls of this one were pierced with windows, showing that they were at last above ground, and moonlight shone through them. Alys looked out one, seeing that there were several buildings in the compound besides the main one they were in, of the usual whitewashed brick construction found all over Motavia.

"Elder Foulke's office is farther along this way; I'll take you to him."

They started along the hall, but after only a few steps a shriek rose from behind them, followed by the slap of sandaled feet on the store floor. They spun, and Alys found herself face-to-face with a terrified brother.

"Brother Wayne!" Brother Huard exclaimed. "What is it?"

"Another killing!" cried the frightened man—boy, really, for he was no older than seventeen. "It's Brother Vincent! I found him just now in the library! It's...it's horrible!" A shudder racked him, and he could barely get the words out.

_I wanted the chance to examine a body,_ Alys thought, _but I could have done without this particular way of providing it!_


	3. Chapter 3

Alys swiftly took command of the situation, much to the relief of the two brothers.

"You, Brother Wayne, was it? Go and report the killing to the Elder and get his instructions on what to do with the body. Brother Huard, since you aren't on the verge of panic, you take me to the library."

"Y-yes, ma'am," Brother Wayne said, grateful to have someone else give him some direction. He nodded, then scampered off down the hall. Brother Huard's face was tight with fear and shock; it had gone ashen pale, looking weirdly disturbed in the lamplight.

"Not another," he murmured, giving the lie to Alys's assumption. "By Heaven, not another!"

"Get ahold of yourself," Alys snapped, grabbing his arm. She snatched the lamp from his shaking fingers before he dropped it.

"I—I'll try."

"I need you to keep your head." _Particularly since he's the only one with an ironclad alibi for this._

Still trembling slightly, Brother Huard nodded.

"I understand. I'll do my best."

"Good. Now show me the way."

The library proved to be just a couple of doors down the hall from the cellar stairs. It was an oddly-shaped room, eight-walled, with arched doors piercing three of them, bookcases on the other five, and two free-standing bookcases as well, forming a kind of aisle down the middle of the room. The body was off to the left side, sprawled just at the base of the bookcase. The killing had been vicious and brutal, Alys realized even before getting a chance to examine the body; blood had been splattered across the floor and books.

"Stay here," she told Brother Huard. There was no reason to make the man sick when he'd likely have nothing to add. She went over to the corpse and crouched down. The dead man had been around forty, with the broad-shouldered, solid build of a man who'd done hard manual labor for most of his life. He'd been dressed in the same way as the other brethren, in sandals and a gray robe that was now ripped and blood-stained.

She was surprised at the sheer number of wounds. The kind of crimes Brother Huard had described—five disappearances without a trace—didn't go together with the level of brutality seen here. There was nothing stealthy or methodical, just wild hacking with a blade or—

_No._

Not a blade. Not a blade at all. _Claws—_and not the claw-weapons some fighters used. The signs were unmistakable. The skin had been pierced by rounded punctures, and then the claws had been dragged through the body, tearing flesh rather than slicing it. It wasn't the work of a man with a knife at all.

But what _was_ it the work of? She couldn't tell.

Alys resumed her examination of the body. There was bruising on the man's hands and more than a few claw-marks on his forearms, including one place where the claws seemed to have grabbed on, bitten down hard instead of slashing. _Defensive wounds_, she realized. Brother...Vincent, she thought the boy had said, had fought for his life. It might explain the sheer violence of the killing. The attacker hadn't been able to make a quick, lethal strike but had instead been forced to fight for its kill, raking Brother Vincent where there was an opening, inflicting numerous superficial injuries along the way, until he had at last succumbed.

Her eyes flicked over the gaping throat wound; it was a ghastly sight and undoubtedly the fatal blow, though blood loss would have killed him anyway if he hadn't been treated with medicine or a healing technique. It told no story of its own, just stood as mute evidence of the savagery of the attack. Yet Alys still had the idea that she was missing something, that there was more to see—no, that she'd already seen but hadn't realized the significance of. _What?_ she asked herself. _What is it?_

At last the answer came to her. She looked back at the dead man's forearm, at the wound that was marked by a row of four neat punctures. She'd thought of it as "grabbing on" when she'd seen it. Now she took the corpse's wrist and lifted it so she could see the underside of the arm, which had been pressed up against his body.

The thing she'd been looking for was there. A single puncture like the others, a claw driven into flesh. Alys reached out with her free hand, holding her gloved fingers over the wounds without touching. Four claws in a neat little row, and one below for the thumb. Since she'd seen that Brother Vincent had been killed with claws instead of a blade, she'd been thinking of the killer as "it," but maybe that wasn't right. Whatever it was, this creature had hands.

"Alys?" Brother Huard asked tentatively. "Have you found any answers?"

Alys stood back up.

"No, no answers," she said, "but I've got a couple of interesting questions."

~X X X~

Elder Foulke was a well-built, gray-bearded man whose robe was the same plain shade as his followers wore. Alys's impression of austerity was confirmed by his office, which contained a simple desk, a filing cabinet, paper, and writing materials. The only indication of personal wealth or indeed ornamentation of any kind was an incense-burner, which put out a sweet scent Alys found cloying.

There were dark circles under the elder's eyes that made them look bruised, shadows of the crisis the Hermitage faced.

"It is a most bitter welcome you have had to our settlement, Alys," he said. Apparently, Brother Huard's excessively formal speech pattern wasn't just a personal idiosyncrasy.

When he'd arrived at the library, Elder Foulke had taken charge at once, verifying Alys's identity and then having Brother Huard and Brother Wayne carry the corpse of Brother Vincent to the infirmary so that it could be prepared for burial. He'd then invited Alys back to his office for their initial meeting; as leader of the order he was, technically, her client, or at least her client's official representative.

"I just hope that I'll be able to do something before it happens again," she said. "That's three murders and five disappearances, if I'm following Brother Huard's story?"

"Indeed," he said, and inclined his head solemnly., "It is a..." he began, then broke off. "There are no words for this horror."

Alys merely nodded in sympathy. She wasn't very good at finding the words, something Galf had always handled when the two of them had been working together. Maybe over time as she matured she'd develop the skill, the ability to comfort others in their grief. Or maybe not, if it was a matter of personality rather than age.

"I had already instructed the brethren to go about in pairs as much as possible," Elder Foulke continued, "and always when they went to the more remote parts of the Hermitage, but Brother Vincent..."

"Was he formerly a fighting man?"

"Yes, in his worldly life he had been a guard, working for a wealthy merchant escorting shipments of goods between various towns. He was always resolute in face of this threat, deeming it something to be fought and overcome. This pride in his own strength is not what we teach here, and I can only fear that—"

He seemed to recognize how inappropriate what he had said was, under the circumstances, and broke off before actually coming out and blaming the dead man for his own death, but the slip reminded Alys that this man had been the founder of the Order of the Inner Light and the creator of the philosophy they espoused.

"Even so, to be murdered forty feet from this room. If it is not safe here, than can any place on the island be so? Our refuge has become our prison," he continued, lamenting.

"Do you have any weapons here?"

He looked shocked and horrified.

"By Heaven, no! We are men of peace here. There is no place for arms in our way of life!"

"Unfortunately, men of violence usually don't concern themselves with what's appropriate for other people's way of life. I'd suggest you get over this reluctance and arm yourselves. Carving knives from the kitchen, gardening tools, whatever you have on hand." Revulsion at the idea twisted his features, but Alys didn't let up. "As for going around in pairs, that's a good idea, but I'd go one better: people should stay in groups of three."

"Groups of _three_? Then you suspect that one of us is—"

"If there's a murderer on this island, then it has to be one of the brethren. Someone would have to be a master of stealth to stay here for two weeks, unseen by all, never leaving even a trace of his or her presence. Maybe—_maybe—_it would work if someone came and went using the Ryuka technique, teleporting on and off the island, but even that isn't likely, and not just because you'd have to have made a very serious enemy to have someone with those kind of skills after you."

"You said..._if_ there is a murderer? How can it be in question?"

"The word 'murder' implies a human being with a motive. That leviathan I killed this afternoon, it was responsible for twelve deaths, but no one would call them murders." She drummed her fingers on the arm of her chair. "Elder Foulke, I'm going to be direct about this. Do you know of any reason why your Order would have a serious and dedicated human enemy? Any reason at all, whether it be some other group you got into a conflict with before coming here, or someone who objected to your settling on this island, or some treasure you might have here that someone would want to steal?"

He spread his hands helplessly.

"I cannot think of anything, Alys. We had no particular arguments or debates before coming to settle here, and all the brethren were free to choose this path, without wives or children that they'd be abandoning. This islet was an unoccupied rock, not even owned by anyone, and no one objected to it. As for wealth, we have little, and certainly no great treasure. We barter with the people of Uzo for supplies, mostly offering herbs from our garden and craft products."

"And you didn't find anything here when you settled?"

Elder Foulke smiled thinly in spite of the situation.

"Buried treasure, you mean? No, there was nothing of that sort here, not even any rumors of it in Uzo."

Alys shrugged. "It might sound romantic, but a gang after a cache of loot is actually about as straightforward as it gets."

"Whereas a killer...without a human motive, some evil monster..."

"Maybe. Though 'monster' doesn't necessarily mean 'evil.' That leviathan wasn't evil, just too dangerous to the people of Uzo to be let roam free."

"But surely _this_ horror—"

Alys shook her head.

"I don't know what to think, Elder Foulke. At this point, I can't rule anything out. Is there any information that you have? Anything you've seen that was unusual or seemed suspicious to you?"

To his credit, he didn't just answer right away but stopped and gave it some thought. The response proved to be the same either way, though.

"No, there was nothing."

"I see. Brother Huard told me that the two men whose bodies were found here had been buried. Who made the preparations?"

"Our infirmarian, Brother Morse."

"Could I speak with him?"

"Of course. You may talk with whomever you wish and search anywhere you please."

"Thank you. Could you tell me how to get to the infirmary?"

Elder Foulke gave her directions. It wasn't hard, just down a side hall and taking the second door on the left. She saw two empty beds when she entered, but a curtain blocked off part of the room.

"Excuse me, Brother Morse?"

"Aaah!" came a startled cry from behind the curtain. "W-who is it?"

"Alys Brangwin, the hunter Brother Huard brought. I need to talk to you."

He pulled the curtain back, revealing himself to be a stout, balding man in his late forties or early fifties. His jowls gave him an almost comical look, like an aging hound, but his eyes were fearful. He had good reason; Brother Vincent's body from the library lay on a broad table behind him. He let out a deep sigh.

"You startled me," he said, a faint note of accusation in his voice. Alys didn't apologize; if he was so nervous, he shouldn't have been hiding in the back, and it wasn't as if she'd done something wrong.

"Elder Foulke told me that you were the one who prepared the bodies for burial."

His eyes flicked nervously to the corpse on the table.

"That's right," he said. "I...I was an apothecary by trade in worldly life. My goal was to treat sickness and injury, to save lives, not to deal with the aftermath of death." He shrugged. "But there was no one else, no former undertaker in our ranks. We didn't have the forethought to recruit one," he said bitterly.

"Then you're the person I need to talk to," Alys didn't let herself get drawn into his fear and frustration. It was natural enough, his anguish at the way his secure, orderly life had come crashing down around him, but the hunter had a job to do.

"What? What could you possibly want from me?"

"You had the best look at the bodies of the murdered men. If anyone can give me useful information about how they died, it's you."

Brother Morse frowned.

"Their throats were torn out. Anyone could have told you that."

Alys shook her head.

"That's not what I mean. I had a chance to examine Brother Vincent's body when Brother Wayne found it. It's clear that he fought back against his attacker. Yes, his throat was slashed, but there were also signs of the fight on his body, including defensive wounds on his arms as well as relatively minor injuries where his attacker had been able to hurt him but not fatally so. Were the other two the same?"

"Oh! Oh, I see. No, no they weren't. Brother Armand's body had only the throat wound, while Brother Cassin had bruising and several small puncture wounds on his left shoulder."

"As if he had been grabbed and held?" Alys demonstrated, reaching out to lightly grip Brother Morse's own left shoulder with her right hand. The infirmarian shuddered visibly, and Alys let go rather than overwhelm him with the imagery.

"Why yes, it could have been that way and...but no, that isn't right." He pursed his lips as if trying to think of something, to put it into perspective. "There was a row of punctures here." He traced his fingertip over the front of his shoulder.

"So he was grabbed from behind, then."

Brother Morse's eyes widened.

"But...but those wounds didn't look like fingernails would make them!"

"No, they were made by claws, talon-like claws," Alys agreed. "At least, that's what Brother Vincent's wounds look like."

"But...to have hands, human hands that can grab, and yet claws...Dear Heaven, what kind of monster are we harboring among us!" the infirmarian wailed.

Alys didn't have an answer for him.


	4. Chapter 4

Alys caught up with Brother Huard in the open courtyard outside the Hermitage. The fresh night air was a relief for her after the stench of blood and death and the sickly-sweet odor of Elder Foulke's incense. The thought whispered at the back of her mind that such incense would have been a good way to conceal any lingering scents if the elder himself had something to hide.

A wind had risen while she was inside the building, and Alys could hear the crash of the waves on the rocks far below. There was a cistern in the courtyard's center, and a few small buildings surrounding it, but the Hermitage itself was clearly the focus of the little settlement.

Brother Huard had been filling a water-jug from the cistern, and nearly dropped it when the hunter called his name. Water sloshed over the rim.

"Alys! I didn't hear you."

"I didn't mean to startle you."

"You walk so quietly," he continued, a note of accusation in his voice.

"Hunters tend to," she explained. "It's the combat training. Even big, strong men who use heavy axes or swords are taught to be light on their feet, for balance and body control. It just becomes habit after a while." Which was a good thing, so she didn't have to _think_ about it in mid-battle when so much else was going on.

Brother Huard let out a deep breath.

"Even so, under the circumstances, you can understand how jumpy we all are. To think myself alone, only to hear a voice from no more than four or five feet away is a shock."

Alys nodded.

"I understand."

The brother seemed mollified by her admissions even without an outright apology—which she didn't feel that she owed him, any more than she had Brother Morse—and his displeasure gave way to a sudden hope.

"Did you have news for me?" he asked. "Has your investigation found the cause of our troubles?"

Alys shook her head.

"Not yet. I've talked with Elder Foulke and Brother Morse, and I have a few questions for you, now."

"For me? But I've told you all that I know."

"There's still a few things, I think. For one thing, you said that you found Brother...Cassin, right?...in his dormitory cell. Where is that?"

"Back in the main building. The dormitory is on the far side of the refectory, which is reached from one of the halls on the far side of the library. Did you want me to show you?"

"Maybe later. The first death, that happened in the cellars, right? That's the lower level where we first came up from the sea cave?"

Brother Huard nodded. The wind plucked at his hood, making it flutter around his face.

"That's right. The wine cellar is just down the corridor from the stairs."

"I see. And the disappearances?"

He looked at her quizzically.

"I'm afraid that I do not understand."

"Where did they happen?" She cut off his most obvious objection. "I know that you can't be sure, but in an ordered community like this one, there should be a sense of where people are _supposed_ to be in between the time they're last seen and the time it's realized that they're missing."

"Ah! I understand." He frowned. "It will not be easy, however. The details become confused over time, so I would have to sit down and prepare careful notes. And, of course, the brethren do have freedom of movement, including time which is their own."

Alys sighed. This wasn't helpful.

"Let me try another way, then. Do you have any reason to think that any of them were taken from outside the main building of the Hermitage?"

Brother Huard blinked at her.

"When you were giving me the background," Alys pressed on, "you said that people thought Brother Selwyn and Brother Farnham might have fallen from the cliffs. Is that because they were supposed to be on or near the cliffs, or just because falling into the sea was the only way you could imagine them vanishing without a trace?"

It was apparently a good question, because he had to stop and think about it for a minute.

"Why, I'm not sure, but...thinking it over, I suppose it must have been the latter. At least, no one mentioned anything about it being their days to care for the animals or the herb-garden."

"Animals?"

"Yes; while we abstain from meat, we do drink milk, and also keep fowl for eggs." He gestured towards one of the outbuildings, which looked to be a coop of some kind, to illustrate his point. Brother Huard then turned back to Alys and a hunt of some of the fear from earlier began to creep into his mind.

"Alys, what is it that you're driving at?"

She tapped her fingers on her belt idly.

"A thought, that's all. The animals...have any of _them_ been hurt or gone missing since the disappearances began?"

"No, not at all."

_Well, at least that fits the pattern._

"You said there was another way to get up to this part of the island besides the steps. Can you show me?"

"Yes, of course. If you'll follow me?"

He led the way out of the courtyard, passing a garden shed and down a path between two small fields. The sound of the waves seemed to ebb, then rise again, and Alys realized that the Hermitage was built near one side of the island with the outside access on the other. It took only a few minutes to cross completely and they were soon at the far cliffs. A small building was built there, with a pulley rig outside hooked to a large basket-type contraption, big enough to hold five or six people.

"We built the lift for bringing cargo up to the Hermitage when it's bulk goods, too inconvenient to haul up and down the stairs. And, of course, it makes things easier for visitors who come at the wrong turn of the tide."

"It looks like it can only be operated from up here."

"That's right. A functioning two-way system would have been much more difficult to build, and less safe as well, as its components would be more exposed to damage from the elements. This way, everything can be examined from up here and kept in good working order."

The wind tugged at Alys's hair, making it flutter in the same way that Brother Huard's hood did. She went to the edge and looked down, seeing the ocean down below and a strip of beach, sheltered on one side by a curving extension of the rock wall.

It was the path up the cliff she was particularly interested in, and she gave it the best look she could in the light from the moon and stars. If need be, she could get a lantern and climb down herself, but she didn't think it was necessary.

"You brought twenty-one men, tools, equipment, and cargo up that?" she said, impressed.

"The lift was one of the first things we built," Brother Huard admitted. "At first, it was just a rope-and-pulley system for hauling up bags and boxes, without the lift basket or the building for the works."

The reason for Alys's respect was obvious: the path was a treacherous zigzag, in some places no more than a foot wide and without proper steps or handrails. Only a sure-footed person or an animal bred for such terrain could get up or down with any kind of ease, and that was assuming they had a head for heights. Anyone with impaired movement had very little chance.

"It's one of us, isn't it?" Brother Huard asked. "That's what this is about. The question about where the disappearances took place, wanting to see how someone else might have gotten onto the island."

It reminded Alys of the conversation she'd had with Elder Foulke, when he'd had assumed the same thing.

"The only thing I can be sure of is, no person from the outside is coming here to do this." She glanced down again at the breakers cresting against the rocks.

"Surely you must have some idea!" His voice rose in pitch sharply.

Alys looked back at him.

"Yes, I do."

"Then for Heaven's sake, do something!"

"I intend to. The point is that I'm investigating so that I know what it is I'm supposed to do."

He flinched at her sharp tone.

"I—I didn't mean—"

"Look, I know you're scared. Heck, if I was you I'd be scared, too. More than a third of this settlement has died or vanished, and someone or something is causing it. But you hired me to take care of it and I have to do it _right_, or the only thing that'll change is that I get added to the list of victims."

Brother Huard stared at her, clenching his hands into fists. It wasn't out of anger; he just needed some outside expression of his fight to control his emotions. From his description of the Order, the whole point of the Hermitage was to retreat from the world, from the distractions of passion and emotion, and instead brutal violence had come for them. It was no surprise that he was at the end of his tether.

From Alys's point of view, it was almost inevitable. This ivory-tower thinking, that one could shut the world out and live in one's own defined boundaries, seemed absurd to her, whether it was this order, the professors of Motavia Academy in Piata, or any other group. You had to live in the world, or the world would come to you and you wouldn't be ready. Death was no respecter of personal choice.

If these people had had a better understanding of what went on beyond their walls, they wouldn't have been vulnerable to what at this point Alys was almost certain had happened. They might not have even lost one life if they'd been sufficiently aware.

Then again, it was no use wishing. Wishes and hopes were great things, but without action to make them real there was no point in even having them. "If only" wasn't going to bring back the dead.

And Alys had a job to do.

~X X X~

The hunter's footsteps echoed hollowly as she walked down the steps from the main level of the Hermitage into the cellars. It was an effort, almost, to walk like that, heavy-legged, giving evidence of her passing with each step.

There were lights in the cellar, slow-burning lamps at intervals, but they were widely spaced out with deep areas of shadow between them that seemed all the blacker because of the pools of light. Alys did not carry a lantern of her own; she was trying to create a scenario and didn't want to disturb it with too many peripheral impressions. Light was a human being's principal defense against the darkness, the means by which they reclaimed a piece of the nighttime for their own. Alys didn't want to claim the darkness. She _wanted_ it to remain dangerous and threatening.

After all, what was the point of baiting a trap, then shooing its target away from where you'd planted it?

And in this case, _she_ was the lure.

It wasn't really the best strategy. When she'd hunted the leviathan, she'd fished for it with bait, while lurking in wait in her boat when her quarry struck. Here, though, she was bait and trap both. The back of her neck itched as if eyes were on her, buit she knew it was just her awareness of the situation, her need to _be_ aware and ready to evade the attack.

No, it definitely wasn't the best strategy, but it was all she could do. Alys couldn't use one of the order to draw her target in! And thus far it had shown a definite preference for attacking lone Brothers. She hoped a lone hunter, armed, wouldn't be too different.

There was no assurance anything would take the bait. The killer had struck once already that night, after all. Its bloodlust might be sated. Alys didn't think so—not if she was right about the reason for the attacks—but even so an attack wasn't guaranteed. Simple caution might prevent it, or some other factor she wasn't aware of.

Or she might just be wrong.

She didn't think so, though. Alys went over the points again in her mind. The timeline of the attacks at the Hermitage. The geography of the island. The physical characteristics of Brother Vincent's death, and those of the other two victims as described by Brother Morse. The circumstances surrounding the murders, and how they compared to those of the disappearances.

_Was that a sound?_ She wasn't sure. It might have been. The vaulted halls held strange echoes. It was odd; the Hermitage was only a few years old, and yet the cellars gave that impression of great antiquity. It was funny, she thought, how that could trick the mind.

Returning to her previous thoughts, Alys decided that no, there weren't any obvious mistakes in her reasoning. Each point supported the others, and there wasn't any evidence left unexplained. Of course, it was still largely guesswork, and there might be facts she didn't know.

She was passing an arch when a flicker of movement caught the corner of her eye. Alys spun, her hand going to a slasher, but relaxed when she realized it was only a mouse, running along the top of a wine-cask. Alys was looking into the cellar where they were stored, in large casks, small kegs, and bottles in a wall rack for finer vintages. The mouse scampered down behind the cask, no doubt continuing its search for food. She turned back to the hall and continued on with her own search.

The major problem was, if Alys was right there was really no way of searching out her target. She _had_ to let it come to her, let it attack her, and defensive battles weren't her specialty. Ideally this was a swordsman's job; the halls were wide enough for it, and had she known she'd have brought one instead of relying on her standard slashers. Still, she'd used them in their folded mode as makeshift knives before, and that would have to do.

She stepped along the hall, moving briskly, a woman with purpose, letting her senses work for her instead of actively looking around in a cautious manner. _Always be aware,_ Galf had taught her. _Let your mind work for you._

Scratch.

She heard it clearly, falling between the sound of her own footsteps. The scratch of claws on stone. It followed, swiftly closing on her, and she whirled, drawing her slashers as she came face to face with a scaled horror. A clawed hand with webbing between its fingers lashed at her, lunging for her throat. Alys snapped up the folded slasher in her right hand, knocking the claw out and to the side. Its owner gave a weird, chittering howl as Alys's blade slashed its arm. She spun, driving her boot into the monster's lower torso, forcing it back, then unleashed her Foi technique. It howled again as the fireburst blasted it off its feet.

Then two more creatures leapt at her from a side passage.


	5. Chapter 5

Alys's honed reflexes were the only thing that saved her; she ducked and rolled beneath a swiping claw and came to her feet, then hurled a slasher towards the two new arrivals.

She'd expected creatures of this sort, but even so the reality was shocking. They were basically humanoid, with two arms and two legs, but their bodies were covered in green scales, their clawed hands and feet were webbed, better suited for swimming than walking, and their bodies sported fins. Their heads, especially, were fishlike, with bulging yellow eyes and mouths that nearly split their skulls in two, filled with needle-like fangs.

Alys knew what the fishmen were: elmelew, carnivorous seagoing monstrosities that largely preyed on fish and other sea creatures but that were occasionally known to come ashore in remote coastal areas or assault seagoing vessels. Despite their appearance, they had no human intelligence, simply being voracious predators.

Alys' slasher whipped across the bodies of the elmelew she'd thrown it at, cutting through scales and drawing an oozing, mint-green ichor that must have served the things for blood. She hurled the second slasher after the first, knowing her best chance was to keep the elmelew away from her where they couldn't use their lethal claws.

The first elmelew, though, had a surprise for her. It struggled back to its feet, then opened its mouth and spewed a high-pressure jet of water at her. The floodbreath took her square in the chest just as she caught the first returning slasher, and just as her Foi had done to the monster, the elmelew's attack lifted her off her feet to slam into the floor. Alys was lucky not to crack her head on the flagstones; as it was the breath was driven out of her and she was completely out of position to catch her second slasher; it went spinning away down the hall behind her.

The two nearer elmelew were charging her almost at once, and Alys knew that if they got to her while she was still on the ground it would be all over with her. Desperately, she used her second technique, one that took a lot more out of her than Foi. Columns of swirling wind burst up around the three elmelew, the Zan technique bruising and buffeting them while sucking the air from their lungs, keeping them from breathing. This secondary effect proved surprisingly effective, leaving the elmelew choking and gasping and after a moment Alys realized why. Although they were amphibious creatures, the fishmen were primarily of the water; their lung structures were not so fully developed as a land-dweller's and each breath therefore provided them with less oxygen.

The realization came to her in the back of her mind, though, because her primary awareness was still coping with basic questions of survival. He sprang to her feet while folding her remaining slasher's blades into closed position. A Foi bought her space by knocking away one of the nearer two elmelew, and she stepped in against the other. Its wounds and the lingering effect of the Zan left it sluggish; while it swiped at her she dodged easily and drove the slasher into its chest, angling up under its ribcage. While the fishman's anatomy only approximated that of a human's, she was sure to hit _something_ vital, and she pulled the blade sideways to widen the wound before tugging it free. Ichor spewed and the thing flopped, twitching, to the floor.

Alys saw the nearer of the remaining two elmelew open its mouth just in time to dive aside and avoid a second floodbreath hit. Summoning power from within herself, she snapped open her slasher and flung it out at the further, now charging, elmelew. The Vortex had only given the leviathan minor injuries, but against this much smaller-sized monster it proved lethal. Alys pivoted into another spinning kick while she caught the returning slasher, her boot crashing into the side of the monster's head to stagger it, and she snapped the slasher closed and drove it home into the side of its neck before it could react.

Breathing heavily, she wrenched the weapon free from the last corpse, then went to retrieve the other slasher. Her chest still ached from the full-on hit she'd taken, and she was afraid she might have cracked a rib. Hopefully Brother Morse knew the Res technique or at least had some monomate on hand; Alys didn't want to have to dip into her own stock of healing medicines. _After all, Guild commissions don't work on a "plus expenses" basis._

She kept her eyes and ears open for any further elmelew as she started dragging the bodies towards the stairs, but there was no sign of any more. That wasn't all that surprising, as they'd likely have swarmed her already if there had been any more around, and while they traveled in large colonies for spawning, roving hunting packs tended to consist of only two or three at a time. _Know your enemy._

It was funny, really. The truth was, Alys had a better understanding of the elmelew's life and motivations than she did about her clients'.

~X X X~

They looked pathetic, somehow, in the morning sun, did the sprawled corpses of the elmelew. The brethren had hauled them up from the cellars for disposal, but before the dead monsters were consigned to the sea the surviving thirteen members of the Order wanted to see for themselves what it was that had destroyed the safety and security of their retreat. In the shadows of the cellar the monsters had seemed like demons even to Alys's practical mind in the instant of their first attack. Yet now the dead fishmen were just...dead.

"These are what was responsible?" Elder Foulke said. For his part, he seemed to find the dead elmelew quite terrifying enough, as did most of the brethren.

Alys nodded.

"Probably not these specifically—though I do suspect that one or more of them _did_ kill Brother Vincent last night—but ones like them. Elmelew colonies are supposed to have twenty or thirty members."

The Elder had to repress a shudder.

"Twenty or thirty?"

"Supposedly. I've never been on a job to take on a colony myself. Obviously there's no way to take the fight underwater to them, so it'd be pretty rare."

"Then there could be over two dozen more. What are we to do?"

"Brick up the sea cave."

"What?"

"That's how they got onto the island," she explained. "They don't climb very well; their legs are more adapted for swimming than for walking. The cliff path would be far too tough for them to handle, so the steps from the sea cave are the only way they could get on and off the island. They're humanoid in shape, but they're not intelligent. They don't use tools or anything like that, so a solid wall would stop them cold. Frankly, it'd be useful against human bandits, too, who'd have a really easy time of it if they raided here."

Elder Foulke flinched distinctly at her last line.

"It's like I said," Alys added. "I know you've come here to live a peaceful life apart from the world, but you need to take at least some basic precautions to keep the world from forcing itself in on you."

Brother Huard approached them out of the group of robed men. His face was not exactly smiling, but at least showing a relaxed mien, with the tension they'd all labored under gone for now.

"Alys," he said, "I was hoping to talk to you before you left, once the Elder has completed his business with you."

"What about?"

He smiled sheepishly at her.

"I...was curious," he admitted. "I wanted to learn how you knew what was happening to us and how to catch these things." He gestured towards the dead elmelew.

"In truth, I would like to hear that as well," Elder Foulke said.

Alys suppressed a sigh. It felt too much like boasting, to go over the whole thing step-by-step, and she'd never liked to brag about her work. The two men, though, clearly weren't going to let her off easily in that respect.

"I suppose," she said.

"Very well," the elder said. "First, however, let us deal with these foul things." He raised his voice and gave swift, concise orders fro the disposal of the dead monsters. The brothers he'd named came forward with a mix of hesitancy and speed; they wanted the things gone and yet were still a little afraid to touch them. Elder Foulke turned and began walking off in another direction, and Alys and Brother Huard fell into step with him.

"Now, if you please, Alys?"

She nodded.

"There were a lot of questions right from the start," she said. "The biggest one was, why were there two separate kinds of crimes, the murders and the disappearances? What set them apart? From your story of the first two killings, Brother Huard, and what we encountered when we arrived with regard to Brother Vincent's death, gave me a common thread."

"Which was?"

"In the case of the three murders, the crime was discovered almost at once. In other words, the killer had nearly been caught in the act by people coming along. I'm convinced if that hadn't happened—if there hadn't been witnesses--Brothers Armand, Cassin, and Vincent would have been among the vanished. That is, the killer was taking the bodies _away_. Brother Vincent's body gave me a pretty good idea as to why."

"I don't see what you mean."

Elder Foulke didn't _want_ to see what she meant, Alys thought.

"I could tell by looking at the wounds that he'd been killed by a monster, not a person with a weapon. It's like I told you earlier, Elder, most of the monsters we hunters are sent after aren't evil, and don't kill people for hate or for gain. They do it to defend their territory, if humans are encroaching on it, or they kill for _food_. The missing bodies...well, you can understand what the obvious train of thought was."

Both men shuddered.

"One thing that confused me for a bit was the fact that the wounds showed the monster had hands like a person's, which is unusual. Most monsters don't. A sand newt's splayed paws are hand-like, but don't have claws, while a crawler doesn't have hands at all. It made me wonder if somehow a person was turning _into_ a monster, or if someone had rigged up clawed gloves to use as a weapon to fake the evidence. But the missing bodies went against that. If it was a member of your brethren, they weren't consuming the bodies here, and your searches would have found the corpses if they were still on the island. And if someone was _playing_ monster, they'd _want_ to leave bodies behind to convince you a monster was responsible—why fake evidence, then conceal it? Besides, why play monster at all? Honestly, if I was leading a pirate gang, say, who wanted something from your Order and was willing to kill for it, I wouldn't play games. I'd attack in force and defeat you easily. You have no weapons, no combat training, and few defenses.

"No, I was sure of it: a genuine monster was attacking the Hermitage and stalking prey here."

The two men looked sick at the explanation. Alys didn't blame them; the gruesome details added to the creeping terror they'd lived with for two weeks would unnerve anyone.

"I was still working on the questions of what and how at that point, but our talk out here and a look at the cliffside made it all come together," she said to Brother Huard. "The known attacks happened within the Hermitage, and none of the disappearances had happened outside, at least to anyone's knowledge. Likewise—and this was important—the animals, easy prey, had not been attacked. It was plain that whatever the monster was, it was coming onto the island from the sea cave, not up the cliff or through the air."

She paused, then hooked her thumbs into her belt.

"It wasn't a big feat of deduction. You'd been here three years, so it wasn't something already on the island. It was a sea creature, one that could climb stairs but not the cliff path, and which had claws but also hands. The fishmen breeds, mermen, elmelew, and the like, fit all the requirements. After that, I just made myself the most attractive bait on the island. Since they don't really understand what weapons are, my being armed didn't warn them off. Luckily they were there last night; I couldn't be sure, but I'd hoped they'd be back because they'd failed to carry off their first kill of the evening."

"Thank Heaven that you were successful," Brother Huard said. "Now we can be free of this terror."

"But what would bring them to our island?" the elder wanted to know. "A single attack by sea monsters I could understand, but to come back over and over again?"

Alys shrugged.

"To them, it was just a good source of food. Given the timeframe of the attacks, I'd bet it was the leviathan's fault. Your troubles started right about the same time that it had moved into the area. The sea worm would have driven the elmelew colony out of its regular fishing grounds, so they moved to new territory. Their hunting packs happened across you, probably swimming into the cave at high tide and blundering onto the steps. Since you use the cave regularly, a trail of scent would lead up the stairs. From that point on, ambushing lone prey—picking off stragglers—was just hunting instinct."

_Twenty deaths_, she thought, adding the victims at the Hermitage to the Uzo fishermen. _Twenty deaths owing to that leviathan's decision to stay in one place._ All that carnage, the waste of human lives, and all because of an animal that didn't even have any concept of what it was doing. It was no wonder that people spent so much time and effort trying to master their environment. Nature—whether it was animal behavior, the weather, or the movement of land and sea—was a vast, impersonal force that did not care if people lived or died, for people's desires or sufferings or dreams.

Maybe it made sense after all, what these brothers of the Order were doing. They tried to shrink the world down, reduce it to manageable constraints. On one level they'd failed, of course, when outside events had forced their way in. But...it made a little more sense to Alys now, when she thought of it that way.

Wasn't it part of her job as a hunter, too? Mastering the environment by removing threats, monsters and criminals alike?

"We will set to work this very day on blocking off the cave stairs," Elder Foulke said. "A crude barricade can be established quickly, and then a proper wall several feet thick built. We shall all certainly sleep more soundly when it is done. Brother Huard, meanwhile, will return to Uzo and send a letter transmission to the Hunter's Guild reporting your success and authorizing them to release your commission fee."

"I certainly appreciate that," Alys said. "It's kind of funny, though. It looks like Nils Lawson is going to get the last laugh on me."

"The village chief? How so?"

"Well, after I killed the leviathan, he kept pressing me to accept a bonus over and above the job commission, and I kept refusing. But since your job all traces back to the leviathan's presence, then I guess I'm going to get an extra fee for dealing with its problems after all."


End file.
